A Record No Longer Perfect
by Drewsramblings
Summary: A not-that-different AU. What if it had been Sabretooth who Rogue had met in Laughlin City? Will the Professor and the others at the Mansion be able to accept that he can't be helped?
1. Prologue

I walk away from the truck and toward the only place where anyone is, a bar. Although I am somewhat resentful that the last truck driver left me in this one-horse town, I am also grateful that he didn't try anything with me, unlike many others. As I enter the bar, I hear a fresh burst of excited yelling and immediately discover the cause: there is some sort of fight going on in a cage, and one man was just taken out, unconscious. Looking at the man remaining in the cage, I feel a chill run down my spine. Why anyone would get into a cage with him, I don't know. It probably has a lot to do with alcohol. He is huge and hairy and blond but his back is turned toward me so I can't see anything else. Eventually another man enters the ring, even bigger than the blond, but I have no doubts that the blond will win anyway. The fight doesn't take very long: a minute or two of the challenger winning, then two punches by the blond, and the challenger goes down. I now have a good look at the blond, and my initial impression is reaffirmed. His eyes are wild, and as he grins evilly I almost expect to see fangs poking out. No one else is stupid enough to challenge him so he is done. He comes slowly to the bar, where I am sitting, longing for the tip money in a small jar on the counter and hearing snippets of news about mutants from the TV. He sits down and orders a drink, and I am fascinated. It's not like I'm attracted to him, but still I can't keep my eyes off of him. Soon, however, something happens. The last challenger, stumbling and sounding piss-drunk, accuses the blond of cheating, and calls him a mutant. He whips out a knife and I instinctively yell, "Look out!"  
  
He spins around and knocks the guys to the floor, snarling. As he does, huge sharp fangs are revealed. "Hold it, freak!" says the bartender, a shotgun to the blond's head. The blond moves faster than I would have thought possible, grabbing the gun with one hand and breaking the barrel with pure muscle power. He stomps off, and I quickly follow. Don't get me wrong - I don't intend to make him my new best friend - but he is a mutant and I want to watch him leave, at least. As soon as I step out of the bar, however, I feel a powerful hand cover most of my face, and another wrap around my waist and lift me up. My last feeling as I go black from lack of oxygen is that the blond has kidnapped me, judging by the smell of wet fur tingeing the overbearing smell of diesel. 


	2. Part 1

One year, four months later...  
  
"Cyke, I got a problem here. There is another mutant on their side, I repeat, another mutant. Specifically a girl who can teleport, fly, and shoot beams not unlike yours out of her hands. I'm doing the best I can to stay out of her way, 'cause I can't touch her, over."  
  
"Logan, hold on, I'll get someone over there as soon as I can, over."  
  
I jump backward, keeping the girl ever in my gaze, even when she teleports behind me, like now. She looks so fragile, and with her attacks and deep, soulless eyes she looks like the embodiment of innocence lost. I have several burns by now, so her beams aren't exactly like Scooter's, because his don't burn, just blast. I leap up and she gets close enough for me to punch a clawed fist at her. She teleports in time, but I succeeded in buying myself a few seconds. Soon, fortunately, clouds form and rain begins to fall out of nowhere, a telltale sign that Storm is nearby. The weather goddess herself appears then, and manages to blow her to the ground, although she just teleports away when lightning is thrown at her. I hear Cyke's voice on the com, "They're retreating; don't let the mutant get away if you can help it. Jean and I will be right there, over."  
  
We have her mostly in control when Cyke and Jean show up, and Cyke nails her in the head from behind, finishing her off. We're done, so we get to cleaning up. We don't particularly care about the soldiers strewn about, but the mutants, in total three of them, are "of great interest" to Chuck, and are pretty interesting to the rest of us too. Jeannie floats the girl into the Blackbird while I get the smaller man and Storm pushes the blond brute ungracefully with a gust of wind. We manage to get all of them on board and we're back in the air before Jean suddenly exclaims, "These two, I remember them! It was a year or two ago. We were sent to pick up a girl and a feral man Magneto was interested in. These fit the description...and the Professor agrees, these are the two we were sent to find."  
  
"What do we know about them?" asks Scooter, still in Fearless Leader mode.  
  
"Well, they were graduates of the Weapon X program, the one Logan escaped, although not before they implanted the adamantium skeleton. From their dogtags, they are Rogue, Sabretooth, and Maverick," she said indicating the girl, the feral blond, and the smaller man. "The Professor believes that Rogue's main power is to absorb the thoughts and powers of those she touches, which then allowed her to absorb several other powers, the ones you just saw. Sabretooth is a self-healer, very much like you, Logan, and is also super strong, though that may be a result of the Weapon X training. Maverick apparently absorbs energy. Well, he absorbs kinetic energy, because you all saw the way he reacted to electricity, and then can release the kinetic energy in the form of a kinetic blast, just like yours, Scott."  
  
"So if Magneto and we were both after those two how did they wind up in the hands of Weapon X?"  
  
"I don't know, but it is clear that they were taken about the time we arrived. If you recall, the woman said they had left separately about 30 hours before we arrived. Logan found a trail, but it went cold, so we can guess that they left together, then were kidnapped in the woods and brought back to Weapon X."  
  
"Do you have any idea how they will respond to being captured?"  
  
"Well, I've never seen a graduate of the program either, but Logan was hard enough to accommodate, and he was only in the program for a month or two." It wasn't looking good. They would all survive, but I personally don't want three killing machines in my house, especially when one can teleport out of her confines and another can break 'em open. I say something to that effect.  
  
"We'll decide what is to be done before they have a chance to break free. Anyway, I don't think there is any conditioning so strong that the Professor can't break it."  
  
"Yeah, how about if their memories were wiped first? Not even he has helped me get my memory back."  
  
"We'll decide once we get back to the mansion and get cleaned up." 


	3. Part 2

"What should we do with them, Professor?" Jean looks thoroughly exhausted as she and Scott enter my classroom.  
  
"I am not sure, Jean. I will have to look into their minds to see if they can be saved. If not, we cannot keep them here."  
  
"I agree, Professor." Scott and Jean sit down at two desks, waiting for me to look into the minds of the new arrivals.  
  
I mentally reach out to the medlab, where Hank and Logan are monitoring the new arrivals. As I enter the first mind, the one called Maverick, I feel the chill that invariably comes when I invade a person's privacy. I look around in his mind, and find an incredible amount of emptiness. It seems to be neat and ordered, most unlike the other minds I have visited. His main thought appears to be a kind of a tape playing the message, "Kill the targets. If you are captured, lay as if dead until you can escape. If no escape is possible, destroy yourself." It plays over and over again, and I move on. I search for his humanity, his memories. I find a bank of memories, but it contains only battle memories and instructions given different circumstances. I know that not all memory is stored in the same place, so I continue to search. I find a bank of short-term memory, with only one thought in it, "Lay still until a means of escape appears." I continue, and find something very promising: a thread of life. There is little other way to describe it, just a small trail of light, saturated with a feeling of humanity. I approach it but it is too thin; I am unable to hold on to it. I find another bank of memory, which begins with memories of absolute terror and pain, being tortured, but progresses on to memories before the program, a picnic, school. It is no more than a handful or memories, mixed in with hundreds full of pain and terror, but I take it to be a very good sign. Even now Logan has no more memory of his past than that, and he did not even complete the training. Yes, I am sure this one can be saved, with time and effort.  
  
Moving on to the large man, Sabretooth, I am struck with a sense of foreboding even as I enter his mind. I feel the same empty orderliness, but instead of nothing, like with Maverick, I feel a heavy sense of evil here. Memories assault me, showing his glee as he attacks the X-Men, managing to rip flesh, Storm's and Logan's. He derives an absolute and terrible pleasure from causing pain. I continue, but find only horrible memories of destruction, death, and glee. I find a set of memories filled with pain, even terror, but this time no other memories are mixed in. There is no sense of humanity here, but I refuse to give up. Eventually, I sense something new, the scent of a woman in his memory. He was just finishing up in a cage fight when he smelled her, and he was filled with curiosity tinged with lust. After his final victory, he went to the bar and watched her watch him. She was pure, innocent, ripe for the taking. When he was attacked, he did not kill the attackers, strangely, but left, knowing she would follow. She did, and he grabbed her and brought her back to his truck. He was taking her into the woods, to a safe place he knew. After he stopped, as soon as he finished removing her clothes, a van pulled up and he was shot with something through the window. He managed to get out of the truck and break one man's neck before he fell unconscious. For me, that is enough. Any man capable of rape is not fit to be here, as he was, even before the training. Or was it? It was before he and Rogue were taken, but what if he had already been conditioned, then escaped, which was why they were looking for him? I look for memories to test this theory, perhaps naively believing the man could not be capable of that kind of cruelty without the conditioning. However, I do find something interesting, vague memories of escaping. Well now, he could not see, but he could smell the two guards near him. He ripped open his restraints and killed them. He pulled off his blindfold and ran. He saw more guards, was shot. He kept running, and found a way out, a window open to a courtyard. He dove through it, and was most of the way to the fence when he was shot at again, from high above. Two bullets connected, but he dove over the fence anyway, not caring about the razor wire at the top. He remembers that he was in the low- security complex, because they had thought they had eradicated his will to escape. He was too strong for them. He had retained his will to escape, and easily did so from the low-security complex. After two more fences, he was leaving a blood trail and men were already hopping into jeeps, but he was in the clear. He made it into the forest and ran until he collapsed, many hours later. So I was correct; he was already conditioned before he met Rogue. So the question remains, can he be saved? If he can be, I am unable to see how. Two full rounds of conditioning had their desired effect: he is now a nearly invincible fighter, taking immense joy in killing others, without conscience or fear. He simply fights to kill. Which means that our only option is to imprison him in an attempt to change him back, or kill him. If we left him go he will cause incalculable damage. I am not willing to kill him yet, but I will discuss it with my students.  
  
Leaving Sabretooth's mind, I enter Rogue's, and a feeling of profound relief washes over me to be out of Sabretooth's mind. Rogue's mind is far more like Maverick's, empty, and without that feeling of evil. She kills and destroys when she is ordered to, and does not go out of her way to, as Sabretooth does. She subconsciously hates having to absorb people. She has already absorbed six, and their personalities are in here with her own, hidden behind the powerful and inhuman force controlling her. I look around, and her most vivid memories, other than the recent fight against the X-Men, are of absolute and all-consuming terror and pain, like Maverick's but worse. Her memories are even stronger than Logan's when he was implanted with the metal skeleton and...that is what is happening to Rogue in her memories. Dear God. They forced her to absorb Sabretooth, then implanted her with an adamantium skeleton to equal Logan's. She remembers lying in freezing cold water, unable to move. She remembers mind-numbing pain. She remembers more, but I forcibly separate myself from those memories and continue. I try to focus on the personality that I feel submerged. I locate it, and the other personalities with it. I try to draw it out, but it can't follow. It feels me, calls for me, calls for someone...Logan. She can feel Logan near her, watching over her, and she is calling him. She recognizes him from some distant memory from one of the other personalities, and silently calls out, "Wolverine!" She is strong, very strong. I think that if I were to bring Logan into her mind we could free her right now. I am eager to talk to my students, and so I disengage.  
  
I open my eyes, my head spinning after all I just learned. Scott and Jean look at me with concern. They had been having a conversation in low tones. "Professor, are you alright?"  
  
"Yes, Scott, I am just a little dizzy. I learned an amazing amount."  
  
"Can they be saved?"  
  
"Well, Rogue certainly can. Maverick probably can be also. But for Sabretooth, I need to consult you. He is not ready to be saved. He was put through the program twice, and as a result he is further gone than I could have imagined. He takes pleasure in causing pain, and spends all of his time trying to provoke situations in which he will have the opportunity to cause pain. If we let him go, he will do incalculable damage. That leaves two options, to imprison him and attempt to change his ways, or to kill him."  
  
"Is there any way that keeping him here would result in undoing the conditioning?"  
  
"There is no way to know. It is quite possible that he has no memory of anything else and no wish to be anything else. I will not be able to change him to that degree against his will."  
  
"We can't kill him. Professor, is there any way we can take him to Sing Sing, get them to rig a special cell he can't get out of? We can accommodate Maverick for awhile, and it sounds as if Rogue can be unconditioned right away."  
  
"Yes, to take him to Sing Sing is the best option." 


	4. Part 3

I am lying in wait. I am unconscious, and I know it. It's a strange feeling. Fortunately, I have taken to remembering things while I am unconscious. Although I still feel my orders, what I have to do, I know now that is not all there is to my life. I must be able to tell what's going on around me at some level, because I can feel their presence. I can feel two of them now, comforting...Wolverine and the other one, large and heavy and yet not threatening, not a fighter. That is a strange feeling to me. How could he not be a fighter? Wolverine is a fighter; he is familiar, comfortable. He kills, but he is also strong, strong enough to defeat this. This person who I now realize is not me. This is Rogue. My name is Marie. I wait, trying to find some way to latch on to Wolverine. Maybe he can share his secret with me, the secret of breaking free. I felt another presence a little while ago, a presence that wasn't there in the physical world. The person was in my head, but wasn't a new personality. The person was just visiting. They weren't a fighter either, but they were still comforting. They tried to help me, me Marie, but even with both of us we weren't strong enough to beat Rogue. I hope the person will come back. If only I could talk to Wolverine, I know I could win. I know I could. I continue to lie in wait. I feel another presence near me, but it is only one of the old ones that live in my head. I don't like them, and I never have. I, Marie, have never been in control and so I was never in a place where I had to fight them, but I have been where I could feel them near me, to feel their constant restlessness and dislike or even hatred of me. It's Sabretooth and the scientist, William Rottner, who hate me. But they'll always be there, no matter what I do. Even if I beat Rogue and become Marie completely again they will still be there.  
  
Of course, Rottner might also have made it possible that I got this far. When I first realized that I'm not Rogue I almost gave up. What could I do? There wasn't anything I could do. But then I remembered Rottner's memory of Wolverine escaping. I remembered seeing the pain Wolverine was in but also watching on the video screen as he broke through his own mind, ripped out the tracking tag attached to the bone of his arm, and escaped. I remembered Rottner's anger and I felt so much better. Whenever I would feel like there was nothing I could do I would remember that fuzzy video image of Wolverine. And here he is, not a foot from me, and I can't talk to him or reach out my hand to touch him. I hate it, and I promise to change it. I will continue to lie in wait.  
  
Slowly, I feel my surroundings change. At first I think it is my physical surroundings, but then I realize that it is the surroundings in my head that are changing. The presence who isn't a fighter but is still comforting is there, and I try to reach for it. I also feel another, but he or she is weak, and I can't tell who they are or what they're doing. They come closer, though, and now I can feel that he is a fighter, not used to being in another person's mind. He is scared, and on one level I criticize him for his fear. He shouldn't be afraid; he's a fighter. But on a deeper, quieter level I realize that it is Wolverine, that he is human, and that he is doing what he can to help me. Thank God, I whisper to myself, even though the phrase is meaningless - I don't believe in any God and never have that I remember. Wolverine is moving closer. He is trying to help me, even after what I did to him in the fight. ...After what Rogue did. No, after what I did. I let myself get this way and do those things; I have to be responsible for every horrible thing my body has done while my mind was away. He is there, and he is pushing, uncertain. He has found me, Marie, and is trying to talk to me. His tone is soothing, apologetic. I can't hear the words. I reach out, and find them there, both of them, in front of me. I find my stolen memory of Wolverine and latch onto it. I force away all the other memories - the instructions, the battles, and everything else - and I clear my mind of everything but Wolverine of my memory and Wolverine in my head. He is still apologizing, and I hear him ask a question. He asks again, and this time I try so hard that I can make it out. "What is your name?"  
  
"Marie," I try to say. I don't think he heard me. "Marie. Marie! Marie! MARIE!"  
  
"Marie? Is that what you are saying?"  
  
"Yes. YES!" I have to put more effort into this than I can remember putting into anything before. But I can do it, because it's him.  
  
"I'm Logan."  
  
"Help me."  
  
"What can I do?"  
  
"Help me. Tell me how you defeated it."  
  
"I remembered. I remembered that I wasn't a machine, and I remembered someone, a friend. I was told to kill him, but I couldn't. I knew him, and I remembered him. I kept myself human and I didn't kill him."  
  
"I'm trying that. I remember me, and I remember you. Why can't I do it?"  
  
"Don't give up. That stuff they put in your head is strong. What if I touched you? Would that help?"  
  
"No, Logan," came another voice, the comforting one.  
  
"I don't know. It has never helped before. I hated it before."  
  
"I..." I feel his presence pulling away.  
  
"Wolverine?"  
  
"Sabretooth, he's awake." Everything becomes quiet again. They pull out, pull out to stop Sabretooth. That is another thing I remember. I remember Sabretooth, the way he fought that day, the way he was fascinating to me. He was conditioned too. I wonder, what would he be like? This rage, this hatred is not his, not Victor's; it is Sabretooth's. I don't know Victor. Would he be kind, a gentleman? As Sabretooth, he is the most evil thing I have ever met, but that's not the man, like it was not me who killed that little girl, who burnt that house to the ground. I hated it, but I couldn't stop it. Is Victor the same way? Watching himself kill, maim, destroy, rape? It must be awful, the most horrible thing imaginable, worse even than the torment of pain and violation of having metal surgically grafted to your skeleton. Even the remembrance of that procedure has me in pain, as I feel the far-away but distinct ripping of my flesh. I try to settle down, try to force it from my mind. I succeed, but in its place, there is a strange feeling, one of the strangest I have ever felt, only absorption comes close. Oh no, that's what it is, I'm absorbing someone! I fight it, but it's no use, and I know that soon a new personality will bubble up to plague me forever. I hope with all my heart that it's not Sabretooth again, because two of him would be unbearable. Ah, there it is. It's...warmth. Strength and sorrow. It's Wolverine, and he is sorry, apologizing with all his heart, apologizing for letting me get hurt. For that's what happened, and I see it through his eyes. Sabretooth woke up and started to attack Wolverine and the blue man, Hank. He thrashed around and hurt both men, and Wolverine pushed him away and toward me. He stabbed Sabretooth, but not before Sabretooth cut me open, my face and my torso, from shoulder to hip. He did it out of spite. Wolverine touched me with his bare hand, and I absorbed him and got his power and his personality. What I had felt was not remembered pain, but real pain right then. Thankfully it's gone now, all but healed. I feel him, his strength and how he wants to protect me. He's apologizing for not being there in time that day in Laughlin City, and for pushing Sabretooth at me now.  
  
"It's okay, don't apologize."  
  
"But it's all my fault."  
  
"No it's not. It's no one's fault, not even Victor's."  
  
"Victor? Is that Sabretooth?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I don't know how you can say that."  
  
"Please, help me fight it."  
  
"Okay." We come together to fight, and I can feel his strength, how much he cares about me even though he doesn't know me and the first time we met I tried to kill him. Even he doesn't know what's happening to him. He doesn't usually feel this way about anyone. Even the students of this school, who he was sworn to protect to the fullest of his abilities, don't evoke this kind of response. It's not love; it couldn't be. But what is it, I don't know. All I do know is that he and I together are stronger even than he and I apart, and we will win. He remembers, remembers fighting the instructions, not killing Anders, his friend. We fight.  
  
After an eternity, fighting the instructions until I lose hope, only to have Wolverine well up and give me new strength, again and again, I succeed. It is a slow process, and I feel like I'm going crazy with frustration that I can't make it go any faster, but that only makes me push harder. Finally I feel the weight disappear, and the absolute need to follow the instructions disappears. They are still playing in the back of my head but now I can ignore them, to my incredible relief. Now the other personalities in my head are welling up also, sensing that the tyrant mind is gone and they have a chance of taking over, but Wolverine and I push them back. I am definitely the owner of my mind and body. Sound and smell and touch return to me, on an unconscious level, and I drift into the sleep of my body. It is the best feeling I have ever felt in my remembered life. I sleep. 


	5. Part 4

When I wake up, my first thought is of Marie. I hope she made it alright, that she really absorbs powers like Chuck thought, that she doesn't hate me for letting her get hurt and for touching her. Chuck said she hated it when she absorbed people. I just hope she's healed.  
  
There is no one is the room with me, or so I think, because I don't smell anything. When Jeannie speaks, though, I realize that my powers just haven't returned yet. I can't smell anymore, not like I could.  
  
"Logan, how are you feeling?"  
  
"How is she?"  
  
"Rogue is completely healed, and she broke her conditioning. She's talking with the Professor now. How are you?"  
  
"I'm good. I need to see her." I sit up, but dizziness won't let me do any more than that.  
  
"You're not going anywhere. Your powers haven't returned yet, and you're still healing from being absorbed."  
  
"How long have I been out?"  
  
"Just two days."  
  
"Two days!"  
  
"You're lucky it's not three weeks, like the first person she absorbed. Maybe you did retain some healing ability after all."  
  
"Jeannie, I ain't kidding. I need to see her."  
  
"I'll talk to the Professor. It wasn't your fault, you know." She closes her eyes, and she wouldn't hear it anyway if I said she was wrong now, so I wait. "She's coming."  
  
No more than a minute later she was there, panting as she came into the room. "You're okay! I just wanted to thank you so much. You helped me beat it. I couldn't have done it without you," she spills it all out, almost in a sob, her eyes huge.  
  
I start at about the same time, "I'm sorry I let him hurt you like that. I just wish I knew what they did to you when you in there." Rage creeps into my voice the way sobs creep into hers.  
  
"It's okay, I just want to forget. The Professor said I could stay, and I accepted. I'm only seventeen, not too old for school."  
  
I forget my rage and look at her, hardly believing. "You're staying, even after what I did?" I realize what I was about to say, and tone it down, a lot. "Good, I'm glad."  
  
She's not leaving, and I'm still too weak to. "Marie, what is it?"  
  
"I don't know. I...I'm sorry for everything." She leaves, and I'm very confused. One, how did she break the conditioning so easily? Two, what is she talking about, she's sorry? Three, what is it about her? She was an enemy just a little while ago. Even so I feel like I have to protect her, more than I feel of my students. It's not love – I've experienced that before - and she's just a kid anyway. It has something to do with innocence, her sense of innocence lost. By now everyone knows I'm just a big softie inside, but what's going on? No one does this to me, least of all an enemy. Not that she is one anymore. I don't get her at all. I'll have to talk to her later. One battle and I'm turned on my head. Speaking of which, not having a healing factor is a bitch. 


	6. Part 5

Part V  
  
My sessions with Maverick are going well. He is unable to escape, so I have had plenty of time to talk to him and try to work out his problems. I have found out much about him, but I still have not broken his programming. He still lies perfectly still, as if dead, and only when I enter his mind do I feel how alive he is. I know about his power, and about his nickname, and about his abilities, and the smallest amount about his past, but still I can not reach him directly. I will keep trying, I know that I have made progress, and I will eventually succeed; I just hope he is still subdued until I do.  
  
As for Rogue, or rather Marie, it was amazing. She is a telepath, a touch telepath, and I believe that had something to do with her remarkable recovery time. She has had slight relapses, most noticeably raising her palm as if to attack me when she saw me the first few times. She was able to refrain from attacking me, however, and none of the relapses have lasted very long or been very serious. She is adjusting as well as could be hoped. She has friends, and is enrolled in classes, including a class with Logan, which has gotten her used to her most recent powers. She has little memory of her past, but thanks to the personality of a boy she has carried since she manifested, she remembers more than Logan does or can ever hope to. She is still showing some of Logan's traits, but no doubt she will soon have complete control over them. She is the personification of my success, and she brings me hope in the face of the daunting task of the 'deprogramming' of Maverick and even more so, Sabretooth.  
  
Ah, Sabretooth, the biggest challenge I believe I have ever faced, and that is saying something. He knows his name at least, but little more. I can not help but despise him, having been in his head, and yet I always remember Marie's reaction - even as he was killing her, she felt pity for Victor and wondered how he could stand to watch himself do such things. It is an interesting thought, although I doubt Victor can watch himself do anything, for unlike Marie was, his mind is not separate from the programming; he does not recognize that that is not him. I wonder what Victor was like. The earliest memory I have been able to uncover is of pain. Later was the escape, and later more pain. So, where do I begin? I explore his memories a bit, and find nothing of use. At one point I found something that could have been the base of his aggressiveness and pleasure in causing pain so I centered my attention on it for a time, but that was even more firmly rooted than the programming. I soon stopped trying there. The problem is that he has no happy memories, not a one. His best memories are all of death and destruction, and it would be extremely unwise for me to focus on those. Frankly, the only reason I succeeded with Marie was that she had already recognized her programming as separate from herself and tried to fight it, and I entered and gave her the push necessary to defeat it. In fact, in that case it was more Logan's help than mine. In any case Victor does not even want to be separated from his programming, so the first thing I must do is to make him want to be separate, to defeat it. But as long as I am unable to prove that freedom will be better I can not do it at all. All I can do is to talk to him, to tell him how much better it is to be free, to lavish him with acceptance and forgiveness. Unfortunately the latter is clearly the most difficult thing I have ever done, constantly surrounded by reminders of his evil.  
  
Just thinking about them brings thoughts of hatred to me for the men that did this, the Weapon X program scientists and officials. I must stop myself from thinking graphic deaths for them, because I know it would disturb some of my telepathic students. I have found out the name of one scientist from Marie, William Rottner, and, by extension, many others. But what am I to do, send the X-Men after them like assassins, to kill them at their homes while they sleep? There must be something in between. What if I were to expose them somehow? No, public opinion of mutants is not so high that there would even be an outcry against them. To some they would be heroes. So what am I to do, kidnap them, perhaps give them a taste of their own medicine and brainwash them, turn them into lovers and protectors of mutants? Compared with the acts they are perpetrating on mutants, it would be justified. To cut open every inch of skeleton on a person's body and essentially weld metal to it! They did that to two whom I know of, and who knows how many countless more - probably every self-healer and power absorber they got their hands on - with the exception of Sabretooth, who was too formidable for his own good to begin with. I will discuss it with the X-Men. 


	7. Part 6

Note: This is a filler episode rather than one that really moves the plot along. I'm off to Colorado for a week and I have been getting ready in addition to digging up my old stories again. In other words there will be nothing for two weeks, but then there will be probably four chapters at once in various stories.  
..............................................  
  
My life before Professor Xavier's school is all a distant memory, hazy and impersonal, like I'm remembering a story from a particularly vivid book. The only thing that keeps me from forgetting completely is the other people in my head. There's eight of them in here. Most of them want out and some of them hate me and wish for my death. The other mutants I absorbed feel pity for me, fortunately, and have given up trying to take over my body, with the notable exception of Sabretooth. The only other things that keep me remembering are my new powers and my far-too-heavy body. It's been difficult getting used to them, because they were specially chosen to be deadly, so now I always have to be careful not to burn anything or poison anybody. I wouldn't even have the powers anymore except that the Weapon X scientists found a way for the changes to be permanent. That's the funny thing: I would have healed fast anyway if Logan hadn't touched me, but he didn't know that, and as it turned out I wouldn't have beat the conditioning without him. I could almost thank Sabretooth for cutting me up.  
  
I hate Sabretooth. He's the most terrible part of me, because unfortunately he is a part of me. Very occasionally he'll get a slight hold over me, and then I can feel the wicked wheels turning in his head: all these vulnerable, uncertain children to play with. The first time it happened I went so far as to draw blood from Miss Munroe's arm, another person he has a terrible fascination with. She forgave me, but I almost didn't come out of my room for several days.  
  
Logan comforted me; he always comforts me. He knows what those scientists do. He would forgive me no matter what, but I wouldn't always be able to forgive myself. When I wake up he's usually there, looking at me. He comes when I have nightmares, which is always, except when I get somebody else's dreams. Judy, the girl who could fly, had wonderful dreams. I wish she were still alive; now all that's left of her is inside me. At least she was strong until the end. She fought them and died rather than become one of their machines. I killed her. They told me she was dead, but she wasn't; she was still holding on, at least until I touched her. Her personality inside my head thanked me for ending the suffering, but that doesn't make it any easier. If Logan weren't here I don't know what I would do. 


	8. Part 7

"Who are you?"  
  
"Maverick."  
  
"Who were you before you were Maverick?"  
  
"There is no before."  
  
"Yes, there is." I call up his memories, the picnic, school, I have seen them so often by now that when I close my eyes I see them, not darkness.  
  
"What is that?"  
  
"It is you, the you before Maverick."  
  
He is silent, the best sign I have had from him yet. Thus far he has always immediately denied that he was anything but Maverick, but this time he seems uncertain.  
  
"You can separate yourself from Maverick, you are not him. What is your name?"  
  
"I have no other name."  
  
"Yes, you do. What name did your parents give you?"  
  
"My parents?" He seems uncertain again, and I think I have found a very promising lead.  
  
"Remember your parents. Your mother," I bring up vague images of her picking him up from school, "tall, brown hair, warm smile. Remember your father," I bring up an image of him barbecuing, "You can see them. Remember them." It has been too long, I must go, but I have given him something to think about.  
  
I open my eyes, to find Scott staring at me. "Sabretooth. He tried to escape. He managed to kill a guard before they locked down. They gassed him and got him back in his cell, but I don't now how long he'll stay in there."  
  
I have been avoiding him recently, and spending all of my extra time with Maverick, but now I must decide what to do with Sabretooth. "I must have a talk with Erik."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Erik is considering breaking him out, I know him. I must convince him that Sabretooth is too far out of control."  
  
After lunch I return to Maverick's mind. I have become obsessed, I fear, but at this point it is probably wiser to finish. He ignores me as usual.  
  
"Do you want to kill me?"  
  
"I will complete my assignment."  
  
"Do you want to kill me? If your assignment gave you a choice between killing me and not killing me, would you kill me?"  
  
"My assignments are always explicit."  
  
"Answer the question."  
  
"No, I would not."  
  
"Can you experience happiness?"  
  
"Feelings are unnecessary and get in the way of completing assignments."  
  
"You can not feel happiness?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I can allow you to experience happiness."  
  
"It gets in the way."  
  
I show him all of the good memories I can conjure up, which total in excess of a dozen now. "You are not Maverick. Release your body and use only your mind." I feel him trying to comply, and I repeat myself. Finally, after what was probably half an hour of real time, I can feel him separate himself from the programming.  
  
"What's going on?" He is very confused.  
  
"You are not Maverick. Do you remember who you are?"  
  
"No, I...I can't remember anything. Just the name Kelly, but that can't be me."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"It's a girl's name."  
  
"What makes you think that?"  
  
"I...I just remember from somewhere that Kelly is a girl's name."  
  
"So you can remember things. Remember your parents."  
  
"I can see them. I was born in Tennessee, I remember that. Her name is Julie Something, Julie North."  
  
"David North." The name called back a snippet of new memory: his mother running over to him, calling him David, inspecting him and wondering how he could have been okay.  
  
"That was just after your manifestation, correct? You had an accident, you fell perhaps, but absorbed the kinetic energy and weren't injured."  
  
"Yes, you're right. I fell off of something high; I remember that my mother wouldn't let me go. She thought it was a miracle."  
  
"David, can you see that it is not you controlling you, but your programming?"  
  
"Dave!"  
  
"Focus, please. Can you see that the programming is controlling you?"  
  
"Yes, I...can. I had no idea." He has a surge of guilt and sickness as he sorts through the memories what he has done since he was brought to Weapon X. I am able to see them as well, but after seeing an image of him ruthlessly delivering a kinetic blast to a man in the chin and breaking his neck I turn away. I do not want to see this and I do not want David to dwell on it either; he must be strong to get past the programming.  
  
"You can stop this, if you want to. You must focus and defeat the programming. Do you remember Rogue?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"She is already free of the programming, and living within this school."  
  
"I'm in a school?"  
  
"Yes, and if you break free you can remain here, like Rogue."  
  
"But how can I break free when I had to move back into my own mind just to realize who I am?"  
  
"It is easier than you might think. Consider how they programmed you in the first place. They tortured you until you were defenseless and then bombarded you with what they wanted you to do constantly for weeks in a row without any breaks, even to sleep. It is a simple matter of reversing that. Begin by increasing your defenses mentally, then mentally bombard the programming with what you want to do until it breaks down, the program in reverse."  
  
"But how do I do that?"  
  
"You are already doing it, just by willing it done. Often all it takes is to want something badly enough, and to keep trying to get it, and you will eventually succeed."  
  
"Uh, sir, I think I feel something..."  
  
I pull out into the part of the mind controlled by the programming, and discover that Maverick has become active. He began to thrash around so wildly that Dr. McCoy, the only one present at the time, began to hold him down. He thrashed against the doctor's heavy body enough to build up some kinetic energy and released it, severing the straps on his arms. He then undid the straps on his legs while Hank was pushed back in surprise. He is now attempting to stand up.  
  
I find the good doctor's strong mental signal. 'Hank, do not touch him if you can help it. You will merely be a source of kinetic energy for him, and he will become stronger.'  
  
'I know, Professor.'  
  
Now for some help from those who have more than merely kinetic energy to offer. 'Storm, Cyclops, get to the medlab immediately. Maverick has escaped.'  
  
'On our way, Professor.'  
  
Fight it, David. I hope you can stop yourself from causing any more damage. 


End file.
